BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//InvisionCommunity Events 4.7.23//EN METHOD:PUBLISH CALSCALE:GREGORIAN REFRESH-INTERVAL:PT15M X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT15M X-WR-CALNAME:RMCommunityCalendar NAME:RMCommunityCalendar BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20250330T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20251026T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MISS SCOTT 02/23/2025 DTSTAMP:20250223T164933Z SEQUENCE:0 UID:203-7-c3fe8195a3dde498d013e477e2142422@aalbc.com ORGANIZER;CN="richardmurray":troy@aalbc.com DESCRIPTION:\n THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MISS SCOTT\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n MY THOUG HTS\n\n\n\n I love that Billie Holiday set up Hazel Scott to have a huge g ig\, she saw her talent and protected her. \n\n Funny how Adam Clayton Po well wanted to go to Congress before he married Hazel Scott\, in his mind she was bigger than him.\n\n I quote Hazel Scott\"The Fighters For Freedom Need Encouragement...\"\n\n Powell should had stood up to the black churc h and demanded his wife be the first lady of the church and play nightclub s. \n\n MLK jr said the first time he sat in a non segregated concert in the south was during a Hazel Scott concert\n\n Max Roach on Drums\, Charle s Mingus on Bass was the band for the Hazel Scott show. \n\n Lena Horne/L angston Hughes/Hazel Scott \n\n Adam Clayton Powell jr was correct that s he couldn't win but he needed to figure out how to help her. In the end of the day he was the husband of Hazel Scott for me. \n\n I quote Hazel Sco t: \"What you thought was commanding was mere bullying ... forever was ver y short\"\n\n Her son said she enjoyed performing in Europe\, the audience was better\, they knew music better. \n\n I paraphrase Hazel Scott: \"I was performing overseas\, and just as things were getting better\, I had t o come back... I have a terrible temper\, and I make a very poor doormat\"  \n\n Adam Clayton Powell jr is smarter than he looked\, he realized Haze l Scott was tired of the USA\, I love her. \n\n I paraphrase Hazel Scott: \"My years out of America was much needed rest... My paris is like the ver y first time you realize you are in love\"\n\n It's funny\, I knew about H azel Scott being from Trinidad\, a legendary pianist\, first black person with their own show\, but I never knew she tried to commit suicide. Adam C layton Powell jr is a legendary Black leader but like Mandela with Winnie \, I am not happy with him as a man. \n\n She is correct\, one big proble m with the youth movement in the black populace in the 1960s and i argue w ith black musical artist in the 1960s was how little they connected with b lack artists of the 1940s and 1950s. You are a superstar in the 1960s why can't you make a album with all these black musical legends of the 1940s a nd 1950s ahhh come on. \n\n I love her\, when she said :\"I have been bra sh my whole life\" \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n SOME MUSIC OF HAZEL SCOTT\n\n Round Midnight from the \"Piano Essentials\" album from Hazel Scott\n\n https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU2QFaH6yc4\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n Hazel Scot t album \"Relaxed Piano Moods\"\n\n https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list= PLarS3CmQuEHuY1S2v3YE8MwOoqOtXyu8E\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Swinging th e Classics album\, Haze Scott\n\n https://youtu.be/iFHIAhBMEWY?si=ASFMg0H8 3VbyFrIc\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATOR\n\n https://ww w.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/hazel-scott-documentary/35137/\n\n\n\n VIDE O\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n TRANSCRIPT\n\n\n\n ♪♪ -Just a minute.\n\ nWho do you want to see?\n\n-I'm Hazel Scott.\n\nWe're here for the auditi on.\n\n-Oh\, Miss Scott.\n\nYes\, they're waiting for you.\n\nGo right in. \n\n♪♪ -It's always bold for an artist to say that they want to step o n the front line or be in the back of the line that urges the crowd to mov e forward.\n\nAnd Hazel was always ahead of this curve\, too.\n\n-When I t hink of Hazel Scott\, I think of her as a pianist\, think of her as an act ress\, think of her as a singer\, think of her as an activist.\n\nAnd you add all those things up\, she's absolutely unique.\n\n♪♪ -You have som eone\, some 70\, 80 years ago\, who challenged the way blacks were portray ed in media\, in Hollywood.\n\n-She's at the forefront of what would happe n in later decades with the civil rights movement.\n\n-There had never bee n a black performer who had their own show ever in television.\n\nAnd here 's this glamorous black woman who's breaking all of these barriers with th is one TV show.\n\n-♪ Let me sing a lullaby ♪ ♪ A lullaby ♪ ♪ Of Birdland ♪ -She had incredible confidence\, and that would sometimes ge t her in trouble.\n\n-♪ Lullaby of Birdland\, that's what I ♪ -She was targeted because of her outspokenness on civil rights.\n\n-♪ ...could t here be ways to reveal ♪ -She ripped them to shreds.\n\nAnd it cost her everything.\n\n-If you fight the establishment\, you're not very popular w ith it.\n\n-Meeting will come to order.\n\n-And everything is done to remo ve you from public memory.\n\n-♪ And there's a weepy old willow ♪ ♪ He really knows how to cry ♪ -Well\, I'm kind of embarrassed to even say this.\n\nBut the first time I really heard of Hazel was during Alicia Key s' tribute at the Grammys when she was playing the two pianos.\n\n[ Pianos playing ] -I've been thinking so much about the people and the music that have inspired me\, and I want to give a shout-out to Hazel Scott\, 'cause I always wanted to play two pianos.\n\n♪♪ -I spent the last 15-some-o dd years learning about music\, and this was the first time I ever even ca me across her just by randomly seeing her video online.\n\nAnd she just bl ew my mind.\n\n-And I think that that really speaks volumes to what this d ocumentary is really about.\n\nIt is always just so distressing to me the amount of hidden figures that we have within black America and its history .\n\n♪♪ [ Applause ] [ Down-tempo piano music plays ] ♪♪ ♪ ♪ ♪♪ -After my mother died\, in her apartment\, we discovered legal pads.\n\nIt must have been 12\, 15 legal pads full of notes about her life \, about her friends\, about those who were not her friends.\n\nShe was si mply writing down things as she remembered them or as she experienced them .\n\n-They say I'm impossible.\n\nI won't conform.\n\nI've been heckled by some people who find it difficult to relate to a woman who insists on bei ng herself.\n\nA great many misconceptions are floating around\, and I'd l ike to clear them up.\n\nI think the time is right for me to say a few wel l-chosen words on the subject of Hazel Scott.\n\n♪♪ [ Applause ] -\"Di al M for Music\" presents Hazel Scott.\n\nAnd today's host\, Father Norman J. O'Connor.\n\n-After more than five years in France\, Hazel Scott is at last back home\, and we're delighted to have her and to welcome her to \" Dial M for Music.\"\n\nWhere did you come from originally?\n\n-I was born in Trinidad.\n\n-One of those guys.\n\n-I'm a West Indian\, yeah.\n\n[ Lau ghs ] ♪ Light among you ♪ ♪ Now your name gone abroad ♪ -She alway s loved Trinidad.\n\nShe left Trinidad when she was 3 years old\, but she always thought of it fondly.\n\n-Hazel was born into a very musical househ old\, growing up with calypso music on the street and classical music in t he house.\n\n-I'd really like to go back a little ways and -- quite a way\ , actually\, and ask you how you got started.\n\n♪♪ -♪ Take me\, t ake me ♪ ♪ Handle with care or break me ♪ -You know\, they tell me I used to use my potty chair.\n\nI'd sit on the floor and play on the potty chair.\n\nAnd so -- -Now\, that's a new one.\n\n-[ Laughs ] I had to be y oung\, right?\n\nMy mother was a teacher of piano\, and it's a little sad because she was preparing to be a concert pianist.\n\nShe didn't know unti l she actually concertized for the first time that her wrists couldn't hol d up for an entire concert.\n\nThey were too small\, and she said\, \"Well \, if they won't hold up\, they won't hold up.\n\nNo tragedy.\n\nI'll just have to teach.\"\n\n-What tunes did you play then?\n\n-Because it was Tri nidad.\n\nI started playing all the popular songs of the day\, you know\, all the little calypsos.\n\nAnd then\, of course\, I couldn't reach the pe dals\, so it was all very percussive.\n\n-There's a picture of her at age 3\, and she has this expression on her face that's as if\, you know\, \"De al with me.\n\nI'm here.\"\n\nThere she is at age 3.\n\nIt's already there .\n\n-♪ You'll love the lady from Trinidad ♪ -You started when you wer e about 5\, didn't you?\n\n-No.\n\n-Didn't you?\n\n-I was a vet when I was 5.\n\nI started playing at 2... -You started before that?\n\n-...and play ing in public at 3.\n\n-My golly\, and you were\, I guess in a professiona l sense\, 5.\n\nSo you have been at it for a while.\n\n-Mm-hmm.\n\nI was t erribly secure.\n\nI was very fresh.\n\nI think a child prodigy is a -- is a little monster.\n\nI was.\n\n♪♪ -Her mother moves her to Harlem ear ly in the '20s.\n\nIt's the height of the Harlem Renaissance.\n\nAnd she's growing up in this community where there are artists\, musicians\, writer s\, poets\, politicians\, intellectuals.\n\n♪♪ -You had black business es.\n\nYou had entrepreneurs.\n\nYou had a black professional class.\n\nYo u had a working class.\n\n-An incredible\, uh\, powerful\, contagious\, el ectrifying blackness that was being shared\, promoted\, articulated\, and promulgated from pulpits to street corners.\n\n-You had the Cotton Club\, where Duke Ellington is performing.\n\nYou had so many musicians that she could surround herself with that could help nurture her talent as a child prodigy.\n\n♪♪ -Alma became her teacher and cultivated the gift.\n\nSh e always said that her mother was the single most important person in her life.\n\n-Alma was a proud West Indian.\n\nShe never accepted the idea of segregation and taught me to have nothing but contempt for its practitione rs.\n\nShe was fond of saying\, \"Let's see just how inferior we really ar e.\"\n\n-How about your dad?\n\nWhat was he doing with us?\n\n-He's a squa re.\n\nMy father's terrible.\n\nHe was an academic sort of man.\n\nHe -- W ell\, he taught English\, you know.\n\nAnd he had to be very -- Oh\, he ha ted my English.\n\nMy English was always incorrect.\n\nMy grammar made him just cringe.\n\n-Her father was there for a while\, but the family was es tranged.\n\nSo when he would come to visit Hazel at the family's brownston e\, um\, instead of taking her to the park or\, you know\, to the zoo\, he would take her to Garvey meetings at Liberty Hall in Harlem.\n\nShe's 4\, 5\, 6 years old and listening to all of these speeches about black uplift and civil rights and social justice and what his aspirations were for his people.\n\nAnd that was her first introduction to sort of a political con sciousness that stayed with her throughout her life.\n\n♪♪ -When I cam e here\, I started playing in public immediately\, all little concerts and things.\n\nThen when I was 8\, my mother took me to Juilliard\, 'cause sh e said\, \"I can't teach you anymore.\"\n\n-Hazel was about 8 years old.\n \nAlma marches her into Juilliard and says\, \"You need to hear my daughte r play the piano.\"\n\nThey said\, \"Well\, students have to be 16.\"\n\nS he goes\, \"No\, you need to hear her.\"\n\n-I had the Rachmaninoff Prelud e in C-sharp minor.\n\nI couldn't stretch an octave.\n\nI could only reach six notes.\n\nSo I had redone all the harmonies so that\, you know\, I co uld do it with six notes instead of eight.\n\nAnd suddenly the door bursts open\, and here's this man in an absolute rage.\n\nHe says\, \"Who is par aphrasing Rachmaninoff?\"\n\nAnd it was Walter Damrosch.\n\n-How did you d o it?\n\nHow did you paraphrase it?\n\n-Instead of... [ Piano plays ] I di d that.\n\nI made the six.\n\n-Oh\, wow.\n\n[ Piano playing ] -I put -- I put the sixth.\n\nHe was furious.\n\nThen he said\, \"Oh.\"\n\nAnd he said \, \"Alright\, go over there.\"\n\nHe started training me immediately.\n\n -Rachmaninoff\, it starts with a kind of space.\n\nBom...bom...bom.\n\nRig ht?\n\nLike\, it just starts there [ Piano playing ] Rachmaninoff's C-shar p minor prelude is one of the most pivotal pieces of piano history.\n\nAnd it's difficult.\n\nIt's a difficult piece to play.\n\nRight?\n\nSo the ha nds are going like this.\n\nUnh\, unh\, wah\, wah.\n\nAll on top of each o ther.\n\nSo her 8-year-old hands can't quite do that.\n\nSo she does a par aphrased version to play it like this.\n\nSomething like this.\n\n ♪♪ ♪♪ So much more soulful\, actually\, to play it like that.\n\n- My mother was a musician.\n\nShe was a pianist.\n\nAnd she taught herself how to play the tenor saxophone.\n\nAnd she formed an all-jazz band.\n\n-I s that right?\n\n-Yeah.\n\n-Was this here in the States at the time?\n\n-S ure\, sure.\n\n-Here in New York?\n\n-Mm-hmm\, and I used to\, uh -- After school\, I'd go play with the band.\n\nThey couldn't get rid of me.\n\nI was hanging around\, you know.\n\n-You had the mother playing jazz saxopho ne.\n\nYou had the little daughter playing piano\, and the two of them jus t became a force of nature up in Harlem at the height of the Harlem Renais sance.\n\nIt was the two of them against the world.\n\n-Alma starts to dev elop a relationship with a number of all-female bands that were very popul ar at the time.\n\nAnd then she creates a band of her own that is all wome n.\n\nHer mother being part of the music community at the time\, her mothe r also being an incredible cook\, the door was always open at the Scott fa mily residence to Billie Holiday and Lester Young\, Art Tatum and Fats Wal ler.\n\n-♪ Got my fingers crossed ♪ ♪ Not that I'm superstitious ♪ ♪ I'm afraid it's too good to be true ♪ -Well\, my idols were Fat s Waller\, Art Tatum\, of course.\n\nWell\, Art Tatum was papa daddy.\n\n- To be sitting as a young pianist\, and then you see these artists sit at t he same piano you practice on and all of a sudden make it sound like it's\ , you know\, falling diamonds from the sky.\n\n♪♪ -It's in her mother' s band that Hazel starts to figure out how to work the stage\, the stagecr aft of her career.\n\nShe's a bit of a ham\, and her mother has to kind of \, like\, scold her and bring her back from trying to steal the spotlight\ , because you're part of a band.\n\n-Her mother had upped her age at the l ocal musicians' union so that she could perform at jazz clubs.\n\n-♪ I'm not attractive\, not so well known ♪ ♪ Not even active when we're a lone ♪ ♪ I've got a man ♪ -For a 15-year-old girl\, 52nd Street was a miracle.\n\nTo be playing the piano between band sets was to be the lowe st one on the totem pole\, but it allowed one to be present at some fairly exciting goings-on.\n\n-She's on 52nd Street playing as an intermission p ianist\, and the headliner was Frances Faye\, the vocalist.\n\nShe started playing different jazz standards\, and then every time she would start a song\, the waiter would come and whisper in her ear\, \"You can't play tha t.\n\nFrances Faye -- Miss Faye does that in her show.\"\n\nSo then she'd start playing another tune.\n\nThey said\, \"No\, you can't play that\, ei ther.\n\nMiss Faye does that in her show.\"\n\nHe did that three or four t imes.\n\n-So finally I sat there one night and I said\, \"She is really gi ving it to me.\n\nHow can I get her?\"\n\nI said\, \"I know how.\n\nI'll d o the Bach inventions\, the two- and three-part inventions\, and I'll sync opate them and see if she does that in the show.\"\n\n-Do a little bit of what you did.\n\n[ Piano playing classical music ] -I'd play it all the wa y through straight\, and then I'd go... [ Piano playing up-tempo classical music ] You know\, up\, really up-tempo.\n\nAnd people started looking ar ound\, and she looked bewildered.\n\nMy mother hated it because she was a purist.\n\nShe liked her jazz straight\, and she liked her classics straig ht.\n\nAnd she said\, \"What are you doing?\"\n\nAnd I said\, \"Well\, thi s is self-defense.\"\n\n♪♪ -And that began her start of swinging the c lassics.\n\n-One of the things that strikes me about Hazel Scott is the sp eed in which she plays a lot of these pieces that involve jazzing the clas sics and then how seamlessly she shifts into that improvisation.\n\n-She h ad complete command of her instrument but then also her wit of being able to pull in those nuances that she would use in the classical context but t hen also at the same time take something in the jazz context and -- and fi nd a way to cross over these things.\n\n-It really places her into a conve rsation about virtuosity that doesn't surround women performers.\n\n♪♪ -I started hanging around Billie Holiday after work instead of going stra ight home.\n\nBillie tolerated me and watched over me when the musicians b egan to hover too closely.\n\n♪♪ -♪ My man don't love me ♪ ♪ He treats me\, oh\, so mean ♪ -One night\, Billie phoned to invite me to he r birthday party.\n\n-♪ He don't love me ♪ -She was appearing at a pla ce called Café Society in Greenwich Village.\n\nThe birthday girl was in rare form and sang her heart out.\n\n-♪ He's the lowest man ♪ ♪ That I've... ♪ -Café Society is the first integrated club in downtown Manha ttan that really focuses on that idea\, that its priority is the idea of i ntegration.\n\n-Barney Josephson\, who owned Café Society\, decided that black music was going to be the center of what he put on.\n\n-Now\, they c ould have been a wonderfully socially innovative place and had bad music o r even had mediocre music.\n\nThey had the very best.\n\n-♪ Southern tre es ♪ ♪ Bear a strange fruit ♪ ♪ Blood on the leaves ♪ ♪ And bl ood at the root ♪ -It was the first time I heard the song \"Strange Frui t.\"\n\nAs she sang\, a picture took shape in front of me\, a chilling por trait of a lynching.\n\nIt was a moment I can never forget.\n\n-Billie Hol iday and her performances of \"Strange Fruit\" kind of helped put Café So ciety on the map\, but in a very short order\, she has to leave.\n\n-And w hen Billie Holiday wants to take off\, she makes sure that Barney Josephso n calls Hazel Scott.\n\nSo for the young\, still teenaged Hazel Scott to t ake Billie Holiday's place at the number-one club in the world\, actually\ , with that kind of social and historic cachet\, you can't exaggerate.\n\n That gig\, that's a huge one.\n\n[ Piano playing ] -He offered me the sala ry of $65 a week.\n\nHaving just closed at a club on Broad Street in Phila delphia where I had earned $100 a week\, my shock was evident.\n\nWhen he saw my reaction\, he declared\, and I quote\, \"$65 a week is what I paid Billie Holiday.\n\nDo you think that you are worth more than she is?\"\n\n I pounced.\n\n\"Do you think that Billie Holiday is worth only $65 a week? \"\n\nIt was not until many years had passed by that I learned that she ha d deliberately quit in order to create the job for me.\n\n-Hazel Scott and Billie Holiday\, they considered themselves family.\n\nShe was a mentor t o Hazel\, yes.\n\nShe was almost like a big sister.\n\nThey were only five years apart.\n\n-In an industry where there is so few of us\, to have tha t support\, to go into rooms where you may be the only one\, because so of ten we're not seen\, but we see each other\, and that's something that's u nmatched.\n\n-And here is that promised piano and a selection you have hea rd many times before but never like this\, Mademoiselle Hazel Scott brings us her own Café Society bounce version of Percy Grainger's \"Country Gar dens.\"\n\n♪♪ -By 1939\, she's the main breadwinner in the Scott famil y.\n\nShe's the one taking care of her mother\, her grandmother\, the whol e family.\n\nThey bought a brownstone in Harlem\, and she's really coming into her own.\n\nAnd she's only 19 years old.\n\n-She had started recordin g\, so people were able to buy her records.\n\n-On one of my travels to a secondhand store on a Saturday afternoon\, I came across one of her Decca recordings.\n\nHere was Miss Scott playing a style of music that really ha rkened back to the stride piano and boogie-woogie of the 1920s and early 1 930s.\n\n-Sometimes there is a mischaracterization of what Hazel does.\n\n So when you hear sometimes people talk about her doing boogie\, what she i s actually doing is stride.\n\n-Stride starts to go\, womp\, whop\, womp\, whop\, womp\, womp\, womp\, whop\, womp\, whop\, womp\, whop\, womp\, who p.\n\nAnd it makes the piano sound like a drum\, like a bass drum and a sn are.\n\nBoom-tap\, boom-tap\, boom-tap\, boom-tap.\n\nBoom-clank\, boom-cl ank\, boom-clank.\n\nSo the piano then becomes like a full band in that mo ment.\n\nBut then when we're playing boogie-woogie\, the hand is staying k ind of in one place.\n\nBom-bee-dubba-dubba-dubba\, bom-bee-uddle-uddle\, ompee-ompee-uddle-ee-up.\n\nOr bum-ba-doddy umpa-doddy umpa-dubby umpa-dub by.\n\nThe left hand can be all of the landscape.\n\nAnd the right hand is all the people\, all the stories.\n\n♪♪ Ah!\n\nI can't actually do it .\n\nI can't actually do what she -- what she does because she maintains a kind of freedom in her right hand and with a totally churning\, totally g rooving rhythm in her left hand.\n\nAnd it takes the brain to be so soft a nd to make sure new neural paths are made for it to actually work together .\n\nI can't do it\, but that's my attempt at it.\n\n♪♪ -Café Society \, in many ways\, became the wheels for Hazel Scott's journey.\n\nShe was making a lot of money.\n\nShe was meeting the finest people in New York.\n \nAnd what had started out to be\, I think\, a one-week engagement turned into her being called the Queen of Café Society.\n\n♪♪ -During the wa r years\, there was a series of films put out by the armed forces that was shipped overseas for the morale of soldiers.\n\nAnd there were various st ories\, and one of them\, very often\, was a musical piece.\n\n-Hello\, fe llas.\n\nI'm glad we could get together like this\, because I have a song I want you to hear.\n\nIt's an awfully good song.\n\nYou men are writing n ew music to it\, and the lyrics are in the headlines.\n\nThe bazookas sing it.\n\nIt's part of every longtime sonata you guys in the field artillery are writing all over Europe.\n\nIt's your song.\n\nSo listen to it\, will you?\n\n♪♪ ♪ When you're down and out\, lift up your head and s hout ♪ ♪ There's gonna be a great day ♪ ♪ Angels in the sky promis e that by and by ♪ ♪ There's gonna be a great day ♪ -Miss Scott was an entertainer whose music would speak to black and white audiences alike. \n\nAnd her fame was such that she was invited to perform in one of these wonderful film shorts.\n\n-♪ Every chance we get makes it a sure bet ♪ ♪ There's gonna be a great day ♪ -She's encouraging our African-A merican soldiers to fight on despite Jim Crow segregation\, despite lynchi ng.\n\n-Many African-Americans made a concerted effort to express their pa triotism and their devotion to the United States as a strategy for securin g civil rights.\n\n-So her and Lena Horne are visiting army bases\, encour aging soldiers to fight.\n\nThey reflect true patriotism\, black patriotis m.\n\n-♪ Hey ♪ [ Song ends ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Her name rec ognition was slowly becoming broader and broader.\n\nSo Barney decided to open a second club called Café Society Uptown.\n\nThat became Hazel's clu b.\n\nSo when she goes to Café Society Uptown\, that's when Hollywood cam e calling.\n\n♪♪ [ Applause ] -Thank you\, thank you\, thank you.\n\nA nd now\, ladies and gentlemen\, you're going to see \"A Night in Café Soc iety\,\" starring the dynamic Miss Hazel Scott with Teddy Wilson at his ba nd.\n\n[ Applause ] ♪♪ -Harry Cohn\, the head of Columbia\, said\, \"S end for her.\n\nI want to see more of her.\n\nEnlarge her part.\"\n\nThe p icture was \"Something to Shout About\" about a group of vaudevillians.\n\ n-During the 1930s and '40s\, there was a glass ceiling.\n\nAnd\, boy\, it was a thick pane of glass that not only prevented black artists from achi eving their full potential on film\, but black women in particular.\n\n-Ju st a minute.\n\nWho do you want to see?\n\n-I'm Hazel Scott.\n\nWe're here for the audition.\n\n-Oh\, Miss Scott.\n\nYes\, they're waiting for you.\ n\nGo right in.\n\n-Hazel is offered four different roles in movies\, and they're all servant roles.\n\nAnd she says no to all of them.\n\n-She had in her contract that she could only perform as herself or as a patron.\n\n She wasn't going to play a tramp\, a whore\, a vixen\, a temptress\, a pro stitute.\n\nShe was going to play herself.\n\nShe was going to play someon e who's intelligent\, who has a wonderful skill set\, someone who deserves respect and demands respect.\n\n-We've always been told as an actor in Ho llywood that\, \"Well\, you're lucky to be here.\"\n\nYou know\, \"You're lucky to even be considered for this.\n\nTake whatever they're giving you. \"\n\nBut the fact that this woman in the '40s was like\, \"That's not the case for me.\n\nI will look glamorous and beautiful and feature all of my talents the way I want to feature them\, and you're going to pay me for i t.\"\n\n[ Applause ] -How's the piano\, Hazel?\n\n[ Piano notes play ] -I guess it'll hold up.\n\n[ Notes play ] -For someone like Hazel Scott to br eak through\, and to be very specific about the ways that she\, as a black woman\, wanted to be treated as an artist as well as represented to the l arger public is radically important.\n\nShe believed that if people saw th e richness of black culture and the incredible talents that they brought t o the stage and to film\, then perhaps there would be a move to change the way that black people are treated in everyday life.\n\n♪♪ -It's repre sentation.\n\nAnd as we say\, representation matters.\n\nIt creates a new lane for black women.\n\n♪♪ [ Applause ] -These are demands that a lot of people are afraid to make to this day because of the fear that they're going to get blacklisted or they're going to be called difficult or they' re going to be called divas.\n\nBut ultimately\, she was making these dema nds because you have to determine your own narrative as a black woman\, or else it will get written for you.\n\n♪♪ -What other entertainer durin g that time could have that written into their contract?\n\nI'll wait a se cond.\n\nNo other.\n\nNo other.\n\nNo other entertainer at that time.\n\ n♪♪ -In that time where there was still so much racism and -- and segr egation\, it just showed that her talent... ...made everybody forget every thing [Chuckles] and give her what was due for her.\n\n♪♪ ♪♪ [ App lause ] ♪♪ -Hazel Scott really burns the piano up.\n\nWhen you watch h er play\, then you understand that what she accomplishes at the instrument was not actually possible.\n\n-In that scene where she's going back and f orth between the two pianos\, she's doing so much political work\, cultura l work\, ideological work.\n\nIt's just amazing to watch her handle all of that at once.\n\nAnd she's singing ♪ When the black keys meet the white keys on Piano Avenue ♪ -♪ Do they music?\n\nThey do ♪ ♪ They swin g it in G corner of Keyboard Street ♪ ♪ The black and the whites do it all right ♪ ♪ Oh\, yeah ♪ -She used every tool in her toolbox as kn owingly as -- as anyone could to get the message across that she wanted to get across and to reach the goals that she wanted to reach.\n\n-♪ The b lack and the whites do it all right ♪ ♪ Oh\, yeah ♪ -It's really iro nic that today\, because of social media\, the one clip that is the most p opular clip of Hazel Scott is her playing the two pianos.\n\nThe film \"Th e Heat's On\" -- That was where she had the worst experience in Hollywood. \n\n♪♪ -♪ Over hill\, over dale\, we have hit the dusty trail ♪ -T he trouble didn't start until the scene where the women were saying goodby e to their husbands as they went off to war.\n\n-Attention!\n\n-It's a seg regated army at that time.\n\nSo all black soldiers and their wives and gi rlfriends are there to see them off to war.\n\nThey've done the rehearsals \, the scene's ready to shoot.\n\nShe walks onto the sound stage and an as sistant director decides to change the costume.\n\n♪♪ -And she notices that the black women have on soiled aprons.\n\nAnd she goes\, \"What is w rong with their costumes?\"\n\nSo the choreographer says\, \"Well\, we spr ayed a little oil on them and so they look more authentic.\"\n\n-The blood rushed to my head.\n\nAm I to understand that these young women are to se e their sweethearts off to war\, wearing dirty Hoover aprons?\n\nThe chore ographer bellowed\, \"Why do you care?\n\nWhat's it to you?\"\n\nWith that remark\, the lid blew off and I went absolutely mad.\n\nThe next thing I knew\, we were screaming at each other and all work had stopped.\n\n-The d irector was like\, \"How the other women are dressed on set is none of you r business.\n\nYou can only control how you are dressed.\n\nThat's in your contract.\"\n\nAnd she said\, \"Well\, actually\, I can control how you d ress the other women because I'm not coming to work.\"\n\n-So she stages a strike and all of the women follow her lead and she goes\, \"We're not co ming back until this is fixed.\"\n\n-Word gets up to the president of the studio.\n\nNot that Hazel Scott is objecting to the maids uniforms.\n\nNot that Hazel Scott is saying that black actresses are not being treated wel l.\n\nThe word is \"Hazel Scott is holding up production.\"\n\nWell\, that 's one of the deadliest phrases in Hollywood.\n\nAnd he said\, \"That's it .\n\nShe's not going to make another movie as long as I live.\"\n\n-Today\ , when pride in our blackness has become the order of the day\, it is a bi t difficult for me to make you understand how lonely it was then.\n\nUntil my fight at Columbia\, no black person had ever dared to oppose the estab lishment.\n\nNo one was there to back me up.\n\nThere I was\, out on the l imb of race pride\, and Harry Cohn swore that he would chop it off.\n\n-Sh e very much so was the only woman doing what she was doing the way she was doing it.\n\nAnd she could have very much so just hoarded all that succes s to herself.\n\nBut in times that she didn't have to\, she advocated for -- for black women.\n\n-After three days of strike\, they gave in.\n\nThe chance to see our people portrayed on screen as they never had before was heady wine for a 22-year-old crusader.\n\nI told the girls\, \"Tonight\, I want every one of you broads into the hairdressers tomorrow morning at ni ne.\n\nI want you on this set immaculately turned out.\"\n\nAs the young w omen left my dressing room\, they had an air of people passing a beer\, vi ewing my last remains.\n\n[ Up-tempo music plays ] -In the movie\, you'll see these women in these beautiful floral dresses doing a dance number\, a nd it's gorgeous.\n\nAnd she stood up for them\, but it cost her her entir e movie career.\n\n-♪ Attention ♪ -And it's just staggering to me that they did that to her.\n\nOh\, it makes me so mad.\n\nIt makes me so mad.\ n\n[ Slow music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -If it became a question\, as it did \, of fame and fortune through acceptance of existing standards or oblivio n due to my embattled stand\, there was no contest.\n\nThere was never and there could never be enough money in the world to compensate for the loss of one's dignity.\n\n-I think a lot of people think the civil rights move ment\, like\, started in the '60s and ended in the '60s\, and it's like\, no\, that was the culmination of decades\, of centuries of people chipping away and chipping away in ways that people don't even realize.\n\nHazel m aking this decision was her own civil rights movement built into her work. \n\n♪♪ -Is this the land of the free and the home of the brave?\n\n[ C rowd shouting \"No\" ] Is this a land with liberty and justice for all?\n\ n-No!\n\n-Is this one nation\, indivisible\, under God?\n\n-No!\n\n-Either let us practice the democracy we are preaching or shut up!\n\n-Adam Clayt on Powell -- dashing\, handsome\, articulate\, fearless\, in-your-face bla ck politician.\n\n-The first time I heard Adam Clayton Powell Jr. exhort a crowd\, I tingled from head to toe and realized that I was in the presenc e of greatness.\n\n-Adam Clayton Powell was an extraordinarily dramatic fi gure who\, before Martin Luther King Jr.\, who\, before Malcolm X\, was co njuring rhetoric and controlling the masses of black people in terms of en couraging them to vote\, to resist\, to speak up for themselves and to con stitute a force for progressive social change for black people in America. \n\n-Son of the pastor of one of the most important congregations\, Abyssi nian Baptist Church\, he would later inherit that pulpit.\n\nHe was an act ivist\, challenging the lack of black-owned businesses\, or that black peo ple could shop on 125th Street but couldn't work there.\n\nHe was very han dsome.\n\nHe married an actress and he was considered a kind of playboy.\n \nHe was a celebrated man about town.\n\n♪♪ -By the time Adam came cal ling\, Hazel was at the height of her fame.\n\nShe had just come back from Hollywood.\n\nSo people came from all over the world to hear Hazel Scott swing the classics.\n\nAnd then in walks Adam.\n\n-I met him on several oc casions\, but in 1943\, I really caught his eye.\n\nI think mainly because he hadn't caught mine.\n\nWomen made such total idiots of themselves over him.\n\nIt was refreshing\, you know.\n\nAnd that was what started the wh ole thing.\n\n-I should try to cut my remarks down.\n\nBut after all\, I'm a Negro Baptist preacher\, you know.\n\n[ Laughter ] Nobody can control t he Negro Baptist preacher.\n\nEven God sometimes can't.\n\n[ Laughter ] Bu t nevertheless\, I will try to make them like a woman's skirt -- long enou gh to be respectable\, but short enough to be interesting.\n\n[ Laughter ] -Their love affair was something of a scandal when it was happening.\n\nH e was still married to Isabel Powell\, and the two of them used to come to Café Society to see her shows.\n\n-I'll never forget this.\n\nHe came in with his entourage and everything\, and my son's godmother\, Mabel Howard \, told me that he stood in the corner with her and he said\, \"I'm going to marry that girl\, but I'm going to go to Congress first because no one will ever call me Mr. Hazel Scott.\"\n\n-Wow.\n\n-Isn't that interesting?\ n\n♪ Who hit me ♪ ♪ Where am I and what's happened?\n\n♪ ♪ I can 't recall a thing since you came in view ♪ -They were the most high-prof ile black couple in America.\n\nTheir wedding in August of 1945 was covere d by Life magazine\, which was a major thing for a black couple in America at that time.\n\n-They are aspirational.\n\nThey are beautiful.\n\nThey a re smart.\n\nThey're sophisticated.\n\nThey're hip.\n\nThey're glamorous.\ n\nThey are challenging every stereotype about what black Americans are.\n \n-It was also incredibly important for their marriage to also represent t he possibilities of the arts and politics coming together in a dynamic way to think about what was next for black America.\n\n-Not only was black Am erica fascinated with them\, but also white America.\n\n-Here is one of th e very fine artists of the American stage.\n\nHazel Scott.\n\nLet's have a nice hand for Hazel Scott.\n\n[ Applause\, up-tempo music plays ] Let's t ake a little peek.\n\n-♪ If I am fancy free and love to wander ♪ ♪ I t's just the gypsy in my soul ♪ ♪ There's something calling me from wa y out yonder ♪ ♪ It's just the gypsy in my soul ♪ -It's significant that it's not just she's the wife of a great man.\n\nHe's also the husband of the supremely gifted pianist and all the things that she is.\n\n-♪ I t's just the gypsy in my soooooooooul ♪ [ Applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Ther e's a deep poignancy that this couple experiences after Powell is elected to Congress.\n\nHe makes history when he comes to Washington\, being elect ed from the northeast as a black congressman\, and he is reminded that he is still a black person and he cannot enjoy the fullness of Washington\, D .C.\, because of segregation\, nor can he enjoy all of the privileges of b eing a member of Congress.\n\n-She admired what he was trying to accomplis h in the House of Representatives\, but as a town she thought\, \"How can this city represent itself as the epicenter of democracy when we can't eve n get into a restaurant?\n\nWe can't even go someplace and have dinner bec ause it's a segregated town.\"\n\n-When you think Adam Clayton Powell\, a warrior\, a word warrior\, a spokesman\, a leader for black America\, coul dn't go to the barbershops\, couldn't go to many of the clubs in Washingto n\, D.C.\n\nHe fought that tooth and nail.\n\nHe didn't take it lying down .\n\n-Adam was chairman of House Education and Labor.\n\nAnd he said\, \"S am Rayburn took me aside and said\, 'Well\, Powell\, I know you're not goi ng to offend any of our delicate sensibilities by coming into our barbersh ops and our restaurants and things.'\"\n\nHe said\, \"I just patted him on the back just as he patted me on my back for luck.\n\nI patted him on his for my share of luck\, and walked away and decided to take 15 of the blac kest men I could find into the Congressional Restaurant.\"\n\n♪♪ -They were black elites.\n\nThey were the black blessed and the black fortunate .\n\nAs such\, they took seriously their responsibility to do something fo r the masses.\n\n-The fighters for freedom need encouragement.\n\nFor now\ , as I write this\, the forces of reaction\, those who preach hatred of ma n are becoming bolder with each new day.\n\nThose who are for the right mu st take heart.\n\nThere is no need to falter.\n\nThere is no place for sel f-doubt.\n\n♪♪ -A year after their marriage\, Hazel becomes pregnant w ith their son\, Adam Powell III\, who they called \"Skipper\,\" and that w as the joy of her life.\n\n♪♪ Adam asked her to give up clubs.\n\nChan ged her entire career.\n\n♪♪ He said\, \"It's the church.\n\nThey don' t want the first lady of the church to perform where people smoke cigarett es and drink alcohol.\"\n\nAnd she thought\, \"Well\, that's the height of hypocrisy because when do you not have a cocktail in your hand?\n\nAnd yo u met me in this very club.\"\n\nShe said\, \"I had to brush up the classi cs again because I had to start playing classical music just as much as I was playing jazz and really expand my repertoire so that I could appeal to a larger audience.\"\n\n♪♪ -And so I went on concert tour after I lef t Café work.\n\nI insisted on going south because we were a concert too.\ n\nYou just can't stay in the north.\n\nYou've got to go south\, right?\n\ nSo I went south.\n\n-You know\, people were still being lynched in the So uth\, and there was that famous flag that waved in Harlem that would tell the number -- you know\, \"30 people were lynched today\,\" or\, you know\ , it was like an update to the community to let them know what was happeni ng down south.\n\n-Oh\, well\, all are equal in the eyes of God.\n\nHow si lly can you get?\n\nChrist himself was the greatest teacher of segregation .\n\nYou never yet found a blackbird in a bluebird's nest unless he was th ere to steal the eggs.\n\n-She is not traveling in a very welcoming Americ a at all.\n\nIt's hard for us to imagine it right now\, but every little t own was a potential sore spot for someone like Hazel Scott and her band me mbers\, and it's not a given that the legal establishment would have prote cted them.\n\nYou know\, the police would have been on the side of the mor es of the communities that they traveled to.\n\n-You had to make sure that you knew where you were going to stay\, that you knew where you might be welcome\, that you knew which roads you would be traveling on\, because it could be very dangerous.\n\n♪♪ ♪♪ -She's sort of emboldened to ch allenge many of those things that are traditional or even legal.\n\nShe's challenging them with her very being every time she steps into some of the places that she travels to.\n\n-I tell you that I would break the law and have a non-segregated audience because I had the clause in my contract th at if they segregated the audience\, they would forfeit half my fee and I would not have to go on.\n\nDr. Martin Luther King told me that the first time he sat in a non-segregated audience in the South was at my concert.\n \n-Because she would never perform before a segregated audience\, it force d a number of venues to desegregate for the first time.\n\n-To have the au dacity to stand up for yourself 10 years before the bus boycotts\, before the civil rights movement as we know it\, for her to have that kind of sen se of self-worth... Amazing.\n\n-I had no trouble until I got to Austin\, Texas\, and sure enough\, I was asking\, \"Is the microphone alright\,\" o r \"Is the piano fine?\"\n\n440 concert pitch.\n\nFine.\n\nThe spotlights and the audience\, of course\, is not segregated.\n\nWhat do you mean?\n\n I said\, \"Oh\, Lord.\"\n\nAnd they said\, \"Well\, there's only a red car pet down the center aisle.\"\n\nI said\, \"How wide can the carpet get?\n\ nNow\, how is somebody going to object to sitting next to somebody who loo ks just like me and paid good money to hear me play?\n\nWhat is that?\"\n\ nAnd they said\, \"Well\, you know\, well\, alright\, we'll have to cancel .\"\n\nI said\, \"Beautiful.\"\n\nAnd that night 7\,500 people had had the ir money returned\, plus the 200 standees.\n\nAnd the students at the Univ ersity of Texas marched out and lit a bonfire and burned the demon effigy. \n\nThat was 1948\, and an out-of-town agitator named Scott got out of tow n in a hurry because I didn't want to go to jail.\n\n-Once again\, here wa s Hazel Scott using her celebrity\, using her notoriety to shine a light o n discrimination in the United States.\n\n-This is a time when black peopl e were still not seen as full human beings.\n\nThis is a time where slaver y is a memory.\n\nIt's not something that we're looking at in history book s.\n\nThis is the time when people's grandfather was an actual slave.\n\nS he showed other folks\, \"You can fight.\n\nYou can do this\, too.\"\n\n-P eople asked\, in all sincerity\, what I hoped to accomplish by deliberatel y flouting the law of Southern states for a temporary victory of an integr ated audience for one night.\n\nMy reply was simple.\n\n\"It was necessary to begin somewhere with someone.\"\n\n-She modeled for so many women who\ , in the '60s\, fell into that same role -- using their music\, using thei r celebrity\, having relationship with movement organizations.\n\n♪♪ - This is the DuMont Television Network.\n\n♪♪ ♪♪ -Hello there.\n\nI 'm Hazel Scott.\n\n♪ I was a stranger in the city ♪ -She was the first person of African descent to have a television show.\n\nA lot of people d on't know that.\n\nWe talk all the time about Nat King Cole being the firs t person to have an actual TV show.\n\nIt was Hazel Scott.\n\n-♪ A foggy day in London ♪ -It was amazing that a black woman could have a televis ion show in 1950\, and that she was hosting it.\n\n-This was a time when t here was a black person on TV\, you called all your family and said\, \"Th ere's one black person on TV.\"\n\n-It wasn't a variety show.\n\nThere wer en't any other acts.\n\nIt was just Hazel at the grand piano\, swinging th e classics\, playing classical music straight\, playing jazz straight\, sw inging them when she wanted to.\n\nAnd then her house band was none other than Max Roach on drums and Charles Mingus on bass.\n\nSo not too shabby.\ n\n-It allowed African-Americans the opportunity to see themselves in a re alistic light.\n\nIt received critical acclaim.\n\nIt was the dignified\, intelligent and respectable representation of blackness that was missing o n television.\n\n-Just as soon as she thought\, \"I've got the dream gig\, I can see my little boy\, I can have the happy home\, I can cook dinner f or my husband\, I can have this perfect life\, still play music\, have a g reat show and have this wonderful life\,\" enter McCarthyism and the black list.\n\n-In recognizing a communist\, physical appearance counts for noth ing.\n\nIf a person supports organizations which reflect Communist teachin gs or organizations labeled communist by the Department of Justice\, she m ay be a communist.\n\n♪♪ -A group of former FBI agents published a boo k called \"Red Channels.\"\n\nIn it\, it had a list of entertainers or peo ple in the entertainment industry that were considered to be subversives.\ n\nAnd it just so happens that Hazel Scott was listed in \"Red Channels\" and that she was attached to at least 10 or more subversive organizations. \n\n-Black politicians\, black activists\, black artists were always vulne rable to the accusations that they were communists\, not because of their political ideologies\, but because of the threat that their demands for ch ange inspired in the very forces that were trying to suppress black politi cal and economic power.\n\n-They were very committed to policing the color line in television in those early days of the medium.\n\nShe was black\, she was brilliant\, and she was brave.\n\nAnd that was a heady mix in 20th -century America and very threatening to people who wanted to uphold the r acial status quo.\n\n-Fear of communists' subversive activities has develo ped into hysterical frenzy\, which grows daily.\n\n-If I had my way about it\, they'd all be sent back to Russia or some other unpleasant place.\n\n [ Applause ] -She said\, \"I've worked all my life on my career.\n\nMy nam e is all I've got\, and I'll be damned if these people are going to scanda lize my name.\"\n\n-Over my father's objections\, she was determined to go public with statements\, plural\, including a statement in front of the H ouse un-American Activities Committee.\n\nAnd my father said\, \"You're cr azy.\n\nYou can't win.\n\nYou can't win with these people.\"\n\n-If I beli eve that I'm in the right\, I will die before I allow myself to be dissuad ed.\n\nIt has never been my practice to choose the popular course.\n\nWhen others lie as naturally as they breathe\, I become frustrated and angry.\ n\n-Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?\n\n-I have told yo u that I will fight for my beliefs\, my affiliations\, and I shall... -Sta nd away from the stand!\n\n-...fight for the Bill of Rights\, which you ar e trying to destroy.\n\n-Officer\, take this man away from the stand.\n\ n♪♪ -Hazel was nothing if not sure of herself\, and if she thought she was right about something\, she would follow through that conviction\, ev en if it was not politic to do so.\n\n[ Gavel bangs ] -Meeting will come t o order.\n\n-She wrote a 50-page statement explaining to them who she was\ , what she did for a living\, that she was not a communist\, that she was not a communist sympathizer\, and she did not appreciate being called eith er.\n\n-This is the day for the professional gossip\, the organized rumorm onger\, the smear artist with the spray gun.\n\nA few cunningly contrived lies\, some false statements\, an impressively long list such as \"Red Cha nnels\" and the years of preparation\, sacrifice\, and devotion are killed .\n\nWe should not be written off by the vicious slanders of little and pe tty men.\n\n♪♪ -One of the mistakes that Hazel Scott made was voluntee ring to appear before HUAC.\n\nShe wanted to clear her name\, but they had already made up their minds.\n\n-I don't think that anyone at that point in time understood the connection between the people who had created the t ract \"Red Channels\" and the House un-American Activities Committee.\n\nT hey shared the same belief in what they called 101% Americanism\, which wa s basically the racial status quo.\n\n♪♪ -She came back from testifyin g in Washington.\n\nHer audience and the ratings was very good.\n\nThe rev iews were very good.\n\nIn fact\, the audience may have been growing\, but the sponsors were nervous and the network was nervous\, and they eventual ly canceled the show.\n\n-If you fight the establishment\, you're not very popular with it\, and everything is done to remove you from public memory .\n\n-One of her real regrets was learning that the network tried to destr oy all the copies of the show\, and she was told\, dumped in the Hudson Ri ver.\n\n-It became kind of lost to history.\n\nI mean\, people in the indu stry knew that Hazel Scott had had the first nationally syndicated show.\n \nAnd\, you know\, as many historians would say\, could have changed the c ourse of television history too.\n\n-The shorthand way of saying what happ ened was that Hazel Scott was blacklisted.\n\nHazel Scott couldn't get a j ob in show business.\n\nAnd this was a very real problem.\n\n-And instead she toured.\n\nShe played in concerts all over the country.\n\n-This is a lovely tune by Prevert and Kosma\, and it's known in America as \"Autumn L eaves\" and in Europe as \"Les Feuilles Mortes.\"\n\n♪♪ ♪ Oh\, je vo udrais ♪ ♪ Tant que tu te souviennes ♪ ♪ Les jours heureux quand n ous etions amis ♪ -What she would do each week -- have her schedule type d up\, and she would post the carbon copy on the kitchen cabinet next to t he phone\, so I could always come home from school and look up and see whe re she was that day.\n\n♪♪ -Having to do more travel really pushes Haz el and Adam apart in some ways\, because she's not spending as much time a t home.\n\n♪♪ -When a love affair begins to fall apart\, you look at y our beloved and he literally comes unglued in front of your eyes.\n\nWhat you once thought was commanding becomes mere bullying.\n\nInside of your v oice is saying forever was very short.\n\n-Thank you.\n\n♪♪ ♪♪ -Th is is Bill Blitzer speaking to you from Paris.\n\nThe divider is one of th e world's most beautiful nightclubs\, and it's here that America's own Haz el Scott has been playing for the Parisian public.\n\nNo need to tell you that Hazel Scott has been a sensation here in the French capital\, as she is in her own USA.\n\nFirst of all\, Miss Scott\, is this your first appea rance in France?\n\n-Yes\, this is the first time in Europe for me.\n\n- ♪ Si tu viens dans ma danse\, si tu me prends bien la main ♪ ♪ Tu me porteras chance et nous irons tres loin tous les deux ♪ -For the summer s of 1951\, '52\, '53 and '54\, we went to Europe.\n\nCongress would go ou t of session in May.\n\nMy mother would have concerts booked in Europe.\n\ nBig venues in France and Italy.\n\nAnd my father would do surprise inspec tions of American military bases.\n\n-♪ Viens danser ♪ [ Singing in Fr ench ] -Tell us one other thing\, Miss Scott.\n\nHow about Paris itself?\n \nHow do you like being here?\n\nHow do you like it?\n\n-Good heavens\, I wish I could stay for a long time.\n\nIt's wonderful here.\n\n♪♪ -She really enjoyed performing in Europe.\n\nShe thought that the reception was better\, that the fans were better\, that racism was different.\n\n-I was in the middle of an unhappy marriage.\n\nI'm an independent person.\n\nEv ery year I'd go overseas\, and just as it was getting interesting\, I'd ha ve to come back.\n\n-There was a grapevine\, and she heard things.\n\nAs t he rumors of infidelity increased\, she became more and more disenchanted with the marriage.\n\n-I have a terrible temper and I make a very poor doo rmat.\n\nOur marriage had become very physical\, very early.\n\nHe went to wife-beating school.\n\nLumps flew with regularity\, and a great deal of precious china was destroyed.\n\n[ Scoffs ] Whenever Adam flaunted a woman publicly\, he was really attempting to prove just how little he cared tha t I had turned him out of the conjugal bed.\n\n-The fights\, she said\, we re just nonstop.\n\nYou know\, they were really going at it.\n\nAnd she ad mitted that\, you know\, a lot of their fights were fueled by alcohol.\n\n -♪ Quand elle s'ennuie dans sa mansarde\, Lola vient écouter ♪ ♪ Le murmure des fontaines qui bavardent a travers ♪ ♪ Les prés et les ro saies ♪ -In the summer of 1954\, my mother's European manager said\, \"H azel\, let your husband and your son go home.\n\nStay one more week.\n\nI can get you Salle Pleyel\,\" One of the big\, big venues in Paris.\n\nHuge \, huge venue.\n\nIt'd be a lot of money.\n\nShe said\, \"Okay\, I'll stay another week.\"\n\n-♪ How do you translate ♪ ♪ N'oublie pas les par oles?\n\n♪ ♪ Lullaby of Birdland ♪ ♪La légende du pays aux oise aux ♪ -So she would send telegrams.\n\n\"Felix wants me to stay another week.\n\nHe can get me this.\n\nFelix wants me to stay another week.\n\nHe can get me this.\"\n\nAnd finally\, my father said\, \"Son.\n\nI don't th ink your mother's coming back.\n\nBecause look at the telegram she just se nt.\"\n\nIt was a telegram asking to ship her piano to Paris.\n\n-♪ I'm in love\, I'm in love\, I'm in love\, I'm in love ♪ -[ Speaking French ] -♪ Lay the branches down along the ground ♪ ♪ And cover me ♪ [ Co nversing in French ] ♪♪ [ Singing in French ] -And she was wildly popu lar all over again in Paris.\n\nSo she was able to live her life out loud in Paris in a way that she couldn't here anymore.\n\n♪♪ -And of course \, the French\, they loved that she could perform and speak to them in the ir language.\n\nShe said\, \"My goodness\, here in Paris\, I'm a queen.\n\ nThey treat me royally.\"\n\nWhich\, of course\, she felt was only her due .\n\n-My years out of America were years of much needed rest.\n\nMy son be came proficient in French.\n\nHe enjoyed life in France and we enjoyed our apartment together.\n\nMy Paris is like the very first time you realize y ou're in love.\n\n-[ Singing in French ] ♪♪ -She's trying to reassess and -- and start this new life.\n\nAdam shows up and he says\, \"You know\ , we need to give this another try.\"\n\nAnd so he tries to rekindle the r omance and the marriage.\n\nAnd for a hot minute\, it worked.\n\n-I guess I'm not entirely surprised that my father would fly to Paris and try to ha ve a reconciliation.\n\nThey told me they were trying to have another chil d and I'm thinking\, \"Hmm.\n\nDoes this compute?\"\n\n-As they started sp ending time together in Paris\, some of the old hurt and the old pains and the old accusations of infidelity\, all of that stuff started to come to the surface\, and all of the old arguments began anew.\n\nAnd by the time he left Paris\, she was completely distraught\, and it was at that time th at she attempted suicide.\n\n[ Engine buzzing ] [ Siren wailing ] ♪♪ - One has to be driven by an inordinate sense of guilt and self-hate in orde r to resort to such desperate and final measures.\n\nMy inability to face a return to that home created a huge guilt within me\, with which I was to tally unable to cope.\n\nMy son wanted it.\n\nMy husband wanted it\, and I knew that I would rather die first.\n\n-Now I know how much she did strug gle emotionally.\n\nAt the time\, she did her best.\n\nIt was pretty good to keep that from me.\n\n-When she came out of that experience\, Billie Ho liday\, who had always been\, you know\, her right hand -- she was always her big sister.\n\nBillie came to her and said\, \"Look\, get it together. \n\nBecause if nothing else\, you've got your son.\"\n\n♪♪ [ Woman spe aking French ] [ Applause ] [ Woman speaking French ] ♪♪ ♪ Mon espoi r et ma crainte ♪ ♪ C'est ton pas dans la rue ♪ ♪ Mon amour vi endra tu ♪ ♪ C'est toujours viendras tu ♪ ♪ Et j'en fait ma comp lainte ♪ [ Singing in French ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Applause ] -[ Spea king French ] ♪♪ -[ Singing in French ] ♪♪ -She was watching the c ivil rights movement unfold while living in Paris\, and she had a tremendo us amount of guilt about being away from the fight\, as she called it.\n\n -You see\, when Dr. Martin Luther King came backstage to see me many times in Europe and he would say\, \"Hazel\, come home because there's another generation growing up that knows nothing about what you did.\"\n\n♪♪ T his is where I got a prominent knot in my stomach.\n\n♪♪ -Last summer\ , we took the show over and did it from the Cannes Film Festival in the so uth of France\, and at the same time discovered a gal was in town that I h adn't seen or really heard of in years.\n\nAlthough I'd had been a great f an of hers\, and I'm proud to say she's back now in America and here she i s\, live on our stage.\n\nHere's Hazel Scott.\n\n[ Applause ] -There was p rofound transformation in the society by the time she returns in '67.\n\nI t was a dramatically different America.\n\n-Gosh\, we missed you.\n\nAnd i t was such a nice surprise to see you.\n\n-That was wild\, wasn't it?\n\n- Yeah.\n\nWhat did you go over to France for in the first place?\n\n-For th ree weeks.\n\n[ Laughter ] ♪ There's something about New York ♪ ♪ Th at explains the way I feel ♪ ♪ There's something about New York ♪ ♪ There's good reason for all that talk ♪ ♪ If you knew her\, you wo uld love her as I do ♪ -By the mid to late 1960s\, we have a rise of a n ew generation\, a militant generation\, a generation that is not always ki nd to its predecessors because they want to be seen as the first ones to m ilitantly confront American racism.\n\nIt's a generation gap\, a big diffe rence.\n\n-We want black power.\n\nWe want black power.\n\n-She had a part icular kind of sensitivity about anybody that thought her becoming an expa triate\, that she was running away from the fight.\n\n-25 years ago\, when I put myself out of work\, when I was called\, among some other kind of t hings\, a black Joan of Arc\, a communist\, a radical\, a professional bla ck lady\, an apologist for my race.\n\nI was told that I waved my color li ke a banner.\n\nI'm not about to sit still now and let anybody tell me tha t nothing has been done until these new Negroes started letting their hair grow long.\n\n♪♪ -♪ My ship has sails ♪ ♪ That are made of si lk ♪ -Music had changed.\n\n-In the number 10 spot\, The Mamas &\; th e Papas\, Peaches &\; Herb\, The Doors\, the Soul Survivors.\n\nNumber 6 is Neil Diamond.\n\nThe Temptations\, the Cowsills.\n\nStevie Wonder hol ds number 3.\n\nStrawberry Alarm Clock moving to number 2.\n\nAnd this is the number 1 record.\n\n♪♪ -♪ Looking out on the morning rain ♪ -T here's all these new sounds that are popular\, and her sitting behind a gr and piano singing jazz standards was just not the order of the day.\n\n[ P iano playing rapidly ] -You've been away too long.\n\n-I agree.\n\n-You've been -- Where are you now\, at the Playboy?\n\n-Yes\, I'm at the Playboy in Hollywood.\n\n-How much longer will you be there?\n\n-Through Saturday night.\n\n-It was a different life.\n\nIt wasn't the concert hall.\n\nIt w as clubs.\n\n-And to just come back to America to find an industry that ha d dried up for her.\n\nA woman who literally stuck to her principles so mu ch that it actually cost her her place in history is so incredibly sad.\n\ nI feel like it was a -- a perfect storm of erasure.\n\n♪♪ -Hazel Scot t's career is\, sadly\, interesting in that it has a trajectory that goes up and sort of stops with her political blacklisting\, and certainly in th is country\, it never really recovered from that stop.\n\nIf she harbored any resentment or bitterness about her treatment\, especially her blacklis ting in the 1950s\, she never let it show.\n\n♪♪ -She made a lot of re cords as a singer\, as a pianist\, with some great musicians and great orc hestras.\n\nBut I would go back to \"Swinging the Classics\,\" that very f irst album\, because that's really the one that ignited the fuse to let th e world know that there was a Hazel Scott.\n\n-One of my favorite albums o f hers is \"'Round Midnight.\"\n\n♪♪ \"'Round Midnight\" has been reco rded by many\, many people.\n\nBut her interpretation of \"'Round Midnight \" has to be a classic in her repertory.\n\n-I was listening just today to one of my favorite albums\, whether I'd known Hazel or not\, \"Relaxed Pi ano Moods\,\" and she's playing with two of the greatest musicians in the history of jazz\, Max Roach\, the drummer\, and the bassist Charles Mingus .\n\nTo play at that level\, she had to have not only the chops\, but she also had to have the intellectual and emotional range to work with them.\n \n♪♪ -Max Roach and Charles Mingus in '55 -- They learned from her mod el about what it is to be activists\, what it is to stand up and be proud and proclaim something.\n\nIt's heard in her touch alone.\n\n♪♪ A kind of defiance\, a kind of boldness\, a directness.\n\nAnd that is threateni ng to people.\n\nIt's threatening when you hear someone who is unshakable\ , and she is unshakable.\n\n♪♪ -Would you ever have any plans to retir e from what you're doing or not?\n\n-I can't even understand that word.\n\ nFirst of all\, everyone I ever knew that retired died six months later.\n \n♪♪ -So\, she called me at my office and said that \"Your mother has her dream job.\n\nIt's going to be a club off Times Square.\n\nI can perfo rm there 30 weeks a year\, 40 weeks a year.\n\nI'll be here all the time a nd I'll be home.\"\n\nAnd then she paused.\n\n\"Oh\, no.\"\n\n\"What's the matter?\"\n\nShe said\, \"The show business superstition.\n\nDon't you kn ow the show business superstition?\"\n\nI said\, \"What's the superstition ?\"\n\n\"When you get your dream job\, you're about to die.\"\n\nI said\, \"Oh\, come on\, you're -- You're not going to die.\n\nYou're in great sha pe.\"\n\n♪♪ ♪♪ The last of her friends to come and see her was Diz zy Gillespie.\n\nAnd he put a mute in his trumpet\, and he played her favo rite song.\n\nSo you hear bleep\, bleep.\n\nAnd he finishes playing the so ng.\n\nAnd she opened her eyes and smiled and closed her eyes.\n\n[ Imitat es flatline ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -She was only 61.\n\nShe died tonight at Mount Sinai Medical Center.\n\nShe had cancer.\n\nHazel Scott was a well-known jazz pianist.\n\nShe had appeared at the old Café Society downtown in Gre enwich Village.\n\nShe was also in movies and on Broadway.\n\n♪♪ ♪ ♪ -We're in a new moment of civil rights and women's rights and\, you kn ow\, now speaking up and being political is the norm.\n\nNow\, because we have social media\, online activism is very kind of easy to do.\n\nShe was doing it when it wasn't easy.\n\nAnd I think that we owe so much to her w ithout even knowing it.\n\n-She teaches us to not put boundaries or barrie rs among the various parts of who we are\, that when you integrate them an d when you make them full\, that you can make an incredible difference.\n\ n-What we do as artists\, we can't just take it lightly.\n\nIt's not about us.\n\nIt's about something bigger and beyond us.\n\nAnd if the art is no t serving that purpose\, you're wasting your time.\n\n-Generations that fo llow her have to re-establish her significance\, her importance\, and see the way she really does lay the groundwork and is a foremother for an Alic ia Keys\, for young women musicians who are also trying to make it in the entertainment industry.\n\n-Don't let anybody ever dim your light.\n\nThat 's what we can take from Hazel Scott.\n\nTo be an activist\, even in a sma ll form and making black people feel seen\, that is how you can learn from Hazel.\n\n[ Applause ] -Do you know a little girl by the name of Skippy P owell?\n\n-A boy!\n\n-A little boy rather.\n\n-You did that on purpose.\n\ n-No\, I didn't.\n\nI just wanted to get the extra line in.\n\nUh\, he jus t called up.\n\n-He did what?\n\n-He said he was watching his favorite mot her playing on \"Toast of the Town.\"\n\nHe wanted to know if you would pl ay for him and the audience two choruses of \"How High the Moon.\"\n\n-Oh! \n\n-Would you do that?\n\n-I'd be very happy to.\n\n-This is for her litt le boy.\n\n[ Applause ] -Each day that I have lived thus far has taught me something.\n\nThe sharing of pleasure.\n\nThe loneliness of pain.\n\nThe long hours of waiting for evidence of love.\n\nThe brief bitter horror of hate.\n\nThe fact of my own fallibility.\n\nThe greatness that has momenta rily been mine.\n\n[ Chuckles ] I've been brash all my life\, and it's got ten me into a lot of trouble.\n\nBut at the same time\, speaking out has s ustained me and given meaning to my life.\n\n♪♪ -If you were to ask he r what her legacy was\, I think she would say something which she said oft en to me\, which is\, \"If you're right\, don't back down.\n\nIf you're ri ght\, fight for what is right.\"\n\n[ Applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪\n\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n \n\n DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250223 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR